Howard Mather Burnham

Howard Mather Burnham (17 March 1842-19 September 1863) was a US Army first lieutenant who was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 during the American Civil War.

Biography
Howard Mather Burnham was born in Hamden, Connecticut in 1842, and he joined the Springfield City Guards of the US Army at the start of the American Civil War in 1861. He served for several months as a recruiting officer before he became aide-de-camp to his uncle Joseph K. Mansfield, commander of the XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and he later became a divisional artillery chief in the Army of the Cumberland under William Rosecrans. During the Battle of Chickamauga, Confederate troops charged his position and shot the battery's horses, preventing the Union soldiers from escaping. They were then picked off by rifle fire, and Burnham was shot in the chest. When another soldier asked if he had been hurt, Burnham responded, "Not much, but save the guns!" His second-in-command Joshua A. Fessenden went on to recapture the Union cannon and even capture a Confederate one, and Burnham died two hours later.